Bic Pens: Fifty Years at the Same Price
May 13, 2009 by Lela Davidson
Filed under Finance
How do you keep the price of your product constant for fifty years? The Bic Cristal ballpoint pen is still sold at an average cost of 19 cents per pen. That’s the same as they sold for in 1959 when they were introduced. So how does Bic manage to keep these staple office supplies so inexpensive?
It must be volume. The company sells about 146,000,000 of those simple pens every year. And of course they’ve branched out into other products as well, including lighters and shavers.
But despite an inflation rate of 622% since the birth of the Bic, the price of the pen has never changed. That could account the fact that it’s a consistent best seller.
Did You Know?
- Each BIC Cristal ball pen has enough ink to write approximately 1.24 miles.
- The pen’s barrel was designed as a hexagon so that it cannot roll off a desk or table.
- In 2002, the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen was made part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA).
- The design of this pen is so highly regarded that an interior design studio in Madrid has created the BIC chandelier — made entirely from BIC(R) Cristal(R) pens.
BIC sticks simple products: stationery products, lighters and shavers. They’re one of the most recognized brands in the world. And they’ve been able to keep prices down. That’s what I would define as recession proof.
Image Credit: Joe Seggiola, Flickr
